With the development of communication technologies and networks, there exist generally various communication networks in one region, and a multi-mode terminal equipment supporting communication with various communication networks is developed to meet user requirements. The various communication networks have different network service regions, and service capabilities of the various communication networks are different, thus, users desire that the multi-mode terminal equipment is capable of media independent seamless handover between different communication media networks, thereby ensuring service continuity. The 802.21 protocol is proposed for the above user requirements, and defines architecture of implementing the Media Independent Handover Functions (MIHF) for the multi-mode terminal equipment. In the architecture, a media independent handover layer is added between layer 2 and layer 3 in the protocol stack of a network entity, and at the media independent handover layer, interfaces to the upper and lower layers of the protocol stack, the Station Management Entity (SME) and the media independent handover layer of a peer communication entity are defined, so that event, command and information services are provided for the multi-mode terminal equipment to implement the media independent seamless handover.
Currently, many network terminal equipments may access different service networks via a gateway device, the access function of which enables a connection between a Local Area Network and a public network. Generally, the gateway may implement the uplink access to the public network in various manners, such as the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), the Ethernet, the CATV cables, and the power lines. The management functions of the gateway include address resolution, data packet forwarding, Quality of Service (QoS) control, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), a firewall function, and the like.
As the pace of social work and living gets faster and faster and more and more vehicles emerge, more time is spent on the vehicles. In addition, people depend more and more on the network for business and personal requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a relatively stable network environment on the moving vehicle for users, to enable the users on the moving vehicle to utilize various terminal equipments, and access the desired service networks via access approaches, based on various communication media to obtain the desired services. At present, although many home gateway devices are capable of enabling home network terminal equipments to access various access networks and service networks, the network environment of the existing home LANs is a fixed LAN environment, and the network terminal equipments in the home LANs are typically connected fixedly to the respective communication networks. Therefore, the existing home gateway devices fail to properly implement the media independent seamless handover of the network terminal equipments in the mobile environment between the various communication media networks, thus, service continuity is not ensured. Further, the existing home gateway devices fail to enable all User Equipments (UEs), which are connected to the gateway device but not authenticated, to access the service networks. As a result, the existing home gateway device cannot properly support the access to various media in the mobile environment.